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Officials want to clamp down on the drug dealing and other crime often associated with them

Kelly Doyle, mother of two, is a ‘student’ in the Welcome Home Society’s two-year residential recovery program that has been running in Surrey for six years under very strict guidelines. She works at the society’s Price-Pro Store.

Photograph by: Steve Bosch
, PNG

METRO VANCOUVER -- Surrey city officials have shut down 16 unregulated addiction recovery houses in the past eight months and are “actively searching for more,” as concerns heighten over the proliferation of such sites following the Dec. 29 fatal beating of hockey mom Julie Paskall in Newton.

For decades, municipalities in the Fraser Valley have struggled to clamp down the proliferation of illicit drug and alcohol recovery homes — as well as the drug dealing and crime often associated with them. But as fast as municipalities and police use bylaw enforcement and the criminal code to shut them down, they pop up again.

Surrey’s bylaw enforcement manager estimates there are at least 67 unregulated recovery homes within the city, and says he is seeing facilities reopen as fast as they are closed.

“There are a few we’re watching closely,” said Jas Rehal, manager of bylaw enforcement. “We know of a few problem ones specifically operating in the city and we’re quick to shut them down.”

Ministry of Health statistics show there are 55 registered recovery homes in British Columbia, of which 30 are in Surrey. There are another 45 recovery houses that have applied to be registered.

But Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts believes there are far more recovery homes in Surrey not registered with the ministry, and the province needs to stop the practice of allowing owners of these unregistered homes to collect welfare cheques on behalf of their clients.

Instead, Watts said, the cost of the recovering addict’s stay and treatment should simply be the $30 per diem that is paid by the Ministry of Health; in that situation, the incentive of collecting a client’s welfare cheque by dishonest recovery home operators wouldn’t exist.

“Recovery homes need to be regulated,” Watts said. “There are some recovery houses that are good and some just turn into drug houses.

“There are things we can do but the jurisdiction lies with the province. Why the province won’t regulate them is beyond me ... The issue is they (an operator) set up as a recovery house and then get people who stay there to sign over their welfare cheques. That’s when the province should step in and say no.”

Recovery homes had been regulated in B.C. under the previous NDP government from 1998 to 2002, when the new Liberal government decided the regulations were too onerous. The recovery homes were licensed the same way as care homes for seniors, which continue to operate under stringent guidelines.

But since the regulations were rescinded, city officials say unregulated homes are often plunked in the middle of residential areas with disreputable operators cramming people into houses, pocketing rent and not providing services.

Surrey and the Fraser Valley tend to be a hotbed for the recovery homes, likely because many of the houses are larger and cheaper to rent.

The situation was so bad in Abbotsford that the city in 2007 decided to beef up its bylaws to require recovery houses to be occupied by a maximum of 10 residents, be located more than 200 metres from a school and another recovery house, have a valid business licence and enter into a housing agreement with the city.

There are now 10 approved recovery homes in Abbotsford, although the city recently lifted a 2008 moratorium on recovery homes, and is now evaluating applications on a case-by-case basis.

Surrey, which had previously attempted to deal with the problem by amending its zoning bylaws to define a recovery home as a “care facility,” with a maximum of six addicts and four caretakers to a home, is planning to strengthen its bylaw and may consider one similar to Abbotsford’s, Rehal said.

“We’re reviewing the process to come up with something like that,” he said. “The biggest kick here is a building operator is funded by the province or federal agencies for recovery homes, but then we get a complaint and find out it is operating in a manner that’s not appropriate.”

About 67 recovery homes in Surrey are also in the process of registering with the Ministry of Health, he said, but noted the city often doesn’t know when the recovery homes pop up.

The Ministry of Health began registering supportive recovery houses in the spring of 2013 after examples of abuse were noticed by both the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Social Development and Social Innovation, said health ministry media relations manager Kristy Anderson.

The Ministry of Social Development and Social Innovation issues welfare cheques.

“There are unregistered homes in B.C. that may call themselves supportive recovery, but they are different from registered houses, and would not provide the same level of services. For example, unregistered supportive recovery homes should not offer the level of medical or counselling support offered at registered houses. Unregistered houses that are providing fewer services are still bound by municipal and criminal laws and regulations,” Anderson said.

“People who receive income assistance benefits from the Ministry of Social Development and Social Innovation have the right to choose where they live and the supports they receive, including registered homes or unregistered homes.”

She added while the province now registers recovery homes, it does not license them as they would a residential care facility for seniors.

“The licensing rules for these facilities in the 1990s were too restrictive; it was almost impossible for operators to comply. We learned that it was not appropriate to regulate these operations to the same standard as a residential care facility. A one-size-fits-all approach didn’t work.”

The government has a 67-page guideline for operators of recovery homes called the Mental Health and Substance Use Assisted Living Registrant Handbook, created in November 2012 before the new registration requirement came into effect the following spring. The guidelines set out health and safety standards and under the Community Care and Assisted Living Act, authorize the registrar to cancel a registration if a home is not in compliance and impose a fine on unregistered residences.

Former heroin addict Jim O’Rourke, who now runs eight recovery homes in Surrey, said he’s been trying for the past five years to get the province to regulate the industry.

He said as a non-profit society he runs his business legitimately but knows of many other recovery homes in Surrey that do not — taking clients welfare cheques but not providing any addiction recovery services. O’Rourke estimates there are 210 recovery homes in Surrey and he believes 180 are not legitimate.

“They have these monster homes in Surrey with three basement suits and you’ll have 20 to 30 people living in a house. Surrey just looks the other way because they don’t want to make a lot of people homeless.”

But O’Rourke said the municipality needs to step up more and start enforcing its own bylaws to ensure all recovery homes are legitimate and not allowing more than 10 people living in a home.

Watts said there have been many examples of Surrey bylaw officers having to shut down recovery homes when they exceed the maximum of 10 residents.

“We’ve seen houses that have up to 20, which is problematic in any neighbourhood,” she said.

West Panorama Ridge resident Bob Campbell maintains unregulated recovery homes often become “centres of crime,” with some residents offering to wash windows or cut lawns while scoping out a potential home to engage in low-level theft. One of his neighbours is afraid to sit outside in her backyard because of a recovery house nearby, he said, while car break-ins and burglaries are happening more often.

“There’s no control over where they go,” he said. “To be honest, it makes me fearful.”

Bill Koonar, director of the Welcome Home Society, said some recovery centre operators are strictly in it to collect a client’s welfare cheque. He said what can happen is some recovery homes become flophouses, and clients end up leaving the home to go back to using drugs before the month ends.

“After the guy takes off, he (the operator) has got his welfare cheque and he ends up taking in another guy in to get his money. It can end up being quite lucrative.”

But he expects the new B.C. requirements to have recovery homes register with the Ministry of Health will weed out the unscrupulous operators, since the municipalities can now shut them down more easily by refusing to issue a business license to those that are unregistered.

The Welcome Home Society is a two-year residential recovery program that has been running in Surrey for six years with very strict guidelines for the 30 clients in the program. The cost is a $4,000 admittance fee, but afterwards the program is free, paid for by the John Volken Foundation.

Usually by the time an addict comes to the program, he or she has gone through five or six short-term recovery programs, said Koonar.

“A lot of programs are just come and go as you please with no ramifications and not much programming. For our people, when they come in they have to make a two-year commitment, not have visitors for the first 30 to 60 days, can’t be collecting welfare, which is a source of money and a reason for some to leave and go do drugs,” said Koonar.

Clients of Welcome Home Society must attend a morning motivational meeting, then go to the life skills training centre to learn job skills and routine. The society runs Price Pro, which is open to the public and offers work experience to clients. He said clients must also be involved with sports and are kept busy because “an addict’s worst enemy is spare time.”

Kelly Doyle, mother of two, is a ‘student’ in the Welcome Home Society’s two-year residential recovery program that has been running in Surrey for six years under very strict guidelines. She works at the society’s Price-Pro Store.

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